Green Girls Podcast | Episode 15 | Digital Detox

Hello everyone and hello 2023. We decided to start the year slow and with a digital detox. What has your experience been like with social media and the world wide web been like recently? As much as we love it, we all deserve a little break. Want video? Green Girls Podcast is on Youtube too.

Follow Green Girls on Instagram: @greengirls.podcast Follow Chloe: @bekindcoco Follow Mikaela: @MikaelaHofman / @RetroKittyVintage

Transcript:

Chloe: We acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we record this podcast.

Mikaela: Always was always will be Aboriginal land

Chloe: Intro: Hello, everyone. Welcome to 2023 We're happy to be here. We've had a little bit of a break. Thank you we are back. And we'll resume our schedule every other week because every wait, I've messed it up, every Wednesday we podcast. On Wednesdays we podcast. There we go on Wednesdays we podcast. We did not take a break. This is not new to me. Seasoned podcasters. Anyway, today we are talking about having a digital detox. Especially because it's January New Year's resolutions are happening Ish. [00:01:00] I kind of don't have any.

Mikaela: I don't have any either. But I think that's okay, good.

Chloe: We're not setting ourselves up for failure.

Mikaela: No. And I think sometimes resolutions, you can have the best intentions, but then it's more of a mental strain. Because you're like, Oh, I've you know, told myself I was going to do these 6 new things this year. And then you're like, it's too much.

Chloe: Oh my gosh, yes, set the bar low if you're doing anything. And so in this episode all about digital detoxes, we are basically going to go over the pros of doing that and the pros of stepping away from social media a little bit. And I guess it's something that we can both talk to, because we have sort of businesses lives on social media. And honestly, people younger than us have more.

Mikaela: I am very grateful that we grew up when we did, I think I'd be able to do it in this day and age. It's scary.

Chloe: The fact that when we got to that age of like 13, like just when Facebook and everything was taking off, we could access it. [00:02:00] But before then it just wasn't even a thing we discovered.

Mikaela: I mean, your phone didn't even have the internet.

Chloe: No, I have certainly had the three games it came with. And I was lucky to have that.

Mikaela: Exactly, it's scary stuff. So we thought because like Chloe said, New Year's resolutions, this is very fitting. And if it kind of helps you guys out in any way, then that's a bonus for us. But we wanted to sort of touch on what it is, why social media became so big, and some of the things that you can do to make it work for you. Because I know not everyone can just delete an app. I get that. So we're not gonna just say, hey, cut it out. We're gonna give you some options and sort of discuss what we think about it, or things that we've done as well.

Mikaela: Yeah, sounds great.

Chloe: Yeah, I'm excited.

Mikaela: Yes. So basically, a digital detox is exactly that. It's a detox from digital things. taking time away from everything online. Yeah. [00:03:00] Whether that be using your phone whether that be watching TV 24/7. Whatever it may be to you.

Chloe:I've never done that.

Mikaela: No, I've never watched a TV show.

Chloe:Netflix has never asked me.

Mikaela: Oh, no actually, we are away. And for Christmas just a couple days. And Jake's dad had Netflix streaming from his phone on the TV. We said why isn't it playing a loop? He's like, what? Like, it's not only auto playing the next episode, he's like, oh, yeah, normally I just click next. We're like, what do you mean? He's like, Oh, well, I didn't like that it autoplayed, because sometimes I don't want to watch another episode. And we all looked at him. We were like, is that mean, you've never been asked if you're still watching. He was like what's that? And I was like, Whoa, excuse me. So there you go. There's people out there who have not been asked if they’re still watching?

Chloe:Wow.

Mikaela: Yeah.

Chloe:Outrageous.

Mikaela: So it could be taking a break from smartphones, laptops, tablets, or limiting their use, not necessarily completely. And some of the reasons [00:04:00] this is beneficial is it can improve mental health. So constantly checking and using our phones, it can lead to some feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, all of that stuff. There's so many different factors into why so some studies have even shown that social media is associated with increased rates of depression, especially in young people.

So it's not great. And of course, we have, you know, decreased self esteem because we're constantly comparing ourselves like Instagram is the perfect explanation of the highlight reel. It's not what it used to be when it first came out. Everyone is only sharing their best. Yeah, so of course, you're gonna look at things and feel a little bit sad about what you're doing.

Chloe:Yeah, we're seeing just the best things every single day. And not even just from your friends like celebrities are on there. Exactly. You just have like a 24/7 view of these celebrities that likely have a lot of money and are living like luxury [00:05:00] even if you know that you shouldn't be comparing yourself, it's really hard not to.

Mikaela: It is and that's exactly right. You know, we see celebrities, most of them are very fit. And they show the eating, and it's all amazing food and you think, oh my gosh, I need to be eating better, but they are personal chefs.

Chloe:Yeah

Mikaela: They have money to grow by whatever. Like, you know, we might be a bit more time poor, which means we can't make those aesthetic healthy meals that, you know, they're showing off as this every day when they probably don't.

Chloe:No way. And they have personal trainers to help work it out.

Mikaela: I don't want to be completely negative. There's definitely benefits to social media and online presence. But I think it's important that we do touch base on why it would be good to maybe take a little bit of a break.

Chloe:Yeah, sure.

Mikaela: So yeah. Just having a blink through my notes. Yeah, don't mind me. It's kind of reflective. I [00:06:00] actually had this topic in my head for a little while. And I started doing some things last year, that sort of helped me just kind of take some time back to myself, like one of the biggest things I found was emails, because I have my very, like, almost original email address, which got overrun, because I would sign up to everything if it had a discount. Yeah, sure. I don't say don't do that. I think you should just have separate emails. So I ended up making my original email my like shopping, spammy email. And then I made a new one for important things.

Chloe:Oh, that's clever.

Mikaela: Yeah. But that meant that my original email address was getting bombarded by everything. And I was just kind of like, I'm over it. So I would let the emails pile up. And then I just delete them all. I wouldn't even look through them. Because I was like, What's the point?

Chloe:Yeah, if it's a sale, it's done now, anyway.

Mikaela: Exactly. So I was like, why am I even having all these emails? So I was like, you know, I'm gonna go through and I'm gonna dedicate like an hour and unsubscribe.

Chloe:[00:07:00] Nice job.

Mikaela: It's hard, because so many emails have unsubscribed in a different spot. Or hidden in text. Yeah, they make it like, they don't want you to unsubscribe, which I get it.

Chloe: Shocking.

Mikaela: Like it took so long. So like, it's not an easy one to do. But I felt so good. I have not gotten any emails that are like, just useless. And not only that, I don't have the temptation to buy stuff that I don't need.

Chloe:Yes, that one is huge. Social media was enough of that without email.

Mikaela: Exactly. So now I've gained all this time back. And I don't have those silly notifications on my phone anytime an email comes through. So I've saved myself time in the sense that I'm not picking up my phone every time it dings to see some sales email that I'm not, you know, I signed up to 10 years ago. Yeah, you could even do it five minutes every day, or you know, 20 minutes in a week and just slowly unsubscribe because I tell you, it made me feel so much better.

Chloe:Yeah. Not believe you had the ding turned on.

Mikaela: [00:08:00] It's just that the other thing that I want to touch on as well is to change your notification settings. But it would always pop up as an email from blah, blah, blah.

Chloe:Have you seen that reel TikTok someone's like, getting ready. They're like cracking the knuckles and then like they take someone's phone and just go ding, ding, ding, ding.

Mikaela: Oh yeah, I have seen this.

Chloe:Like going to your grandparents house and just deleting all unnecessary apps, my friend's phone is like that for notification. They just never turned any of them off there to get everything. None of them matter and it's just really distracting. And they have a brain that's very busy as it is and very, very easily distractible. And it's just like, No wonder you're getting a ding about everything, everything and like, you can't then focus on one thing.

Mikaela: Correct.

Chloe:Yeah, I think there are definitely some things I still need to turn notifications off for.

Mikaela: Yeah, I do too.

Chloe:It's so much better now that I've realised I can turn certain things off, because there's so much I don't care about.

Mikaela: Definitely. And even [00:09:00] some things you know when you do go through your emails, and you click unsubscribe, some of them take you to a page where you can choose so you can you know, unsubscribe from marketing and this and that ended up they keep say important things or say, Hey, you only send me one email a month. Don't send me you know, 20 a day. Thank you.

Chloe:Dominos. Yes.

Mikaela: Yes, exactly. Like Chloe said, in terms of notifications, that's another one because some apps when you go into the notification settings, there's notifications for everything. So many useless things you don't need. And not only does it take up your time, your mental capacity, it also takes up your battery.

Chloe:It does, like really does, oh gosh. Especially if you've already left the location.

Mikaela: Yeah, oh, Bluetooth or Wi Fi or any one of those. I know. So I definitely think that's a good thing to do. And even when you're going through settings of apps, you will also see apps [00:10:00] that you may not actually use? So you kind of do a bit of a clear out as well.

Chloe:Yes. So good doing clear out something that I've started doing. And I know that because it's not really my phone, I haven't done all of this stuff, but do not disturb. Or like work mode or whatever it's called on your phone. Having Do Not Disturb on it's so good, especially when you can put on a timer so that I'm not distracted to look at these things during work. Yeah, or while I'm asleep, like it automatically turns on at like 10 o'clock at night so that nothing vibrates.

Mikaela: Because I literally just thought of going to sleep mode, and it turns on at 10. And it makes the screen grayscale turn off all the notifications and you can tweak it how you want. You don't have to have it as whatever.

Chloe:Greyscale sounds really fun.

Mikaela: Yeah, because sometimes you like your phone. It's so bright. It's like a torch. So grayscale is really nice. It's so funny.

Chloe:Oh God, the amount of times you target is like you're gonna find it. I guess I don't have [00:11:00] grayscale but that's fine. Your phone is a little newer than mine.

Mikaela: That's true.

Chloe:Does your flippy thing.

Mikaela: I know.

Chloe:This is so jazzy?

Mikaela: Yeah. So there you go. Chloe is just mentally gone through all my notes.

Chloe:Just the best.

Mikaela: Very good.

Chloe:Do you ever go through like emails on Instagram? I did that recently. And it's tough. I am following like about 1000 people. But I will go through an Instagram kind of nice view looking at the most so like those people that want to top? And then it randomly seems to trickle down. Yeah. Or it's like, Who have you followed most recently, and I'll get to these people that I'm like, I don't know who you are. If it's a brand I know that I don't follow or I don't want to buy from you anymore. And it's so good to get rid of them.

Mikaela: 100%

Chloe:And like just know that they're not going to contact?

Mikaela: Yeah.

Chloe:No contact. They're not gonna I'm not gonna see a post from them. And more than that, actually, if there's a brand or a person that I know, I haven't heard from in a while, and I want to [00:12:00] I will unfollow and then follow again. So that Instagram is like oh, I go and like some of their posts.

Mikaela: Very good.

Chloe:So the Instagram or whatever it is, is like, Okay, you want this content. Like say you want to get rid of all of the influences that just take like rude pictures and food and stuff that make you feel shit? get rid of them. And then focus your time on like, good Instagram accounts that you want to follow like retro kitty vintage.

Mikaela: Yes. Thank you.

Chloe:Like, like some of their posts and do some comments, and that will tell Instagram. You want to see more from retro kitty vintage.

Mikaela: I'm pretty sure you have read Maths.

Mikaela: Really? Did you say that?

Mikaela: Because I'm not exactly. But I do say on their unfollow social media accounts you don't resonate with?

Chloe:That's a good word.

Mikaela: A lot of us. Yeah, a lot of us have accounts from very early on. And people change. I'm no way the same person that I was when I first started my Instagram account. So there's people there that were aligned with my old values. There were people on there [00:13:00] that I followed, like, I think I wrote on here. Where is it? Yeah, yeah. If you're like me, and you started your Instagram account a long time ago, people change, our tastes change, our hobbies change.

So over time, some of the accounts you used to love may not be serving you as well as they did. And I felt that because I went through and I had your fitness stage or your eating healthy stage. And I call it all of these accounts. But then when their posts would come up, it would just make me feel shit. Yeah, it wouldn't be what I hoped it wouldn't be that you know, catalyst to action, or that positive impact in my day instead of to be like, Oh, look at them. That's not me. So delete, Goodbye.

Chloe:You know what? That's just a big brain moment, right? Yeah. Like when you're on Instagram, you're not necessarily there for that purpose, you might be on for a purpose. But if you're not, you're just scrolling and wanting to see stuff, and then you're just not necessarily in a headspace to take fitspiration or whatever it is the [00:14:00] right way. Whereas if I'd say I turned on an audio book that's like self help, whatever I've chosen that.

Mikaela: Exactly.

Chloe:I will dive into that for our book completely and love it. And I'm not going to get that from Instagram. It's not going to actually make me want to do the thing. Just interrupting me or making me feel shit.

Mikaela: That's right.

Chloe:There is a space for it. You can still engage with those people by their book.

Mikaela: Yeah, that's very true.

Chloe:It might not be that social media Instagram is the right place for it.

Mikaela: No, I think that's really tricky because exactly what you said is that Instagram is sort of similar to a pillar with my own. I'm used to sitting on the desk now I'm like, but Instagram is such a mixed bag. Yeah. And I'm slowly trying to tweak who I follow to what I want on Instagram. Like, you know, I want crafty stuff. I want fun like who gives [00:15:00] a crap fashion account, like people who wear hot pink and lime green together and they look amazing. I'm like, I want that, you know, not the beautiful models and everything else.

So I think it's really important to go through and kind of tweak who you follow. And it's not about numbers, either. Like I used to get a bit like, Oh, if I unfollowed a small business or something. But in the end, if I'm not engaging with them, I'm not giving them what they want anyway, so it's just a number, and exactly what you said about Instagram saying that you have this many followers, but no one's engaging. It's a bad thing. Technically. I guess we'll be doing them a favour.

Chloe:Yeah, honestly, yeah.

Mikaela: People engage.

Chloe:People post. I think I've done a story or something in the past. It's like, if you would like to unsubscribe or unfollow, please do because you're not helping me by simply being here. Yeah. Like, if you do engage, if you like my stuff, then like it, otherwise, it's okay to leave. That will bring my engagement up, because then it's just the people who engage with the left.

Mikaela: Exactly.

Chloe:[00:16:00] And that's still a good thing. I think there are so many people like myself included that like the vanity metric of the follower. Getting to a number is great. Of course, it's gonna stroke the ego. But if it's empty, like I'll go through and delete as many bots as I can find. And that brings the number down. It makes me sad for a bit. But hopefully that means then the right people see it correct.

Mikaela: Yeah, and I wrote my note on that, like I said, exactly, here, I'm just gonna read word for word because I just sat there and like, word vomited on my computer. But I said, I know how taxing it can be looking via Instagram followers. If you're trying to make something of yourself, I still look every day when I was working on Leo, two new followers, one unfollower back and forth back and forth is to make me feel so bad. Now I know it's just a number.

And there's so many bots on the platform. It's not even funny. Plus, it didn't translate to sales or customer interactions. And in the end, I just stopped looking like, don't get me wrong, it's good to aim for something. And you know, that round number of 1000, or 10,000 [00:17:00] is awesome. But if nobody is actually engaging with you, then what's the wind?

Chloe:Yeah, a great thing about goals. Forgotten who I originally learned this from may have been a great guy I follow called Tom Ross, it may have been a book, who knows, sometimes I read things, but the idea of setting yourself goals like with my new YouTube, I'm trying to think what a good goals. And as much as I could say, like 100 followers, or 1000. And like getting to those number based milestones, I can't control them.

And so I'm likely to feel terrible if I don't meet them, or keep on raising the bar for myself. If I do, it's much better for me to say post a really weak post, video and consistently, those things that I can do and take off, as opposed to focusing on if it gets 100 likes, or something, especially because Instagram or YouTube basically controls that. There's only so much we can do. And if you are doing new year's resolutions right now, [00:18:00] please try and keep it to things that you can manage. And you can attain not what is known as a vanity metric of 2000 subscribers or something, because I eventually got there. I got to 2000 followers. By that point, I couldn't care less. Because it had been so.

Mikaela: Exactly. I remember reaching 1000 And I had a giveaway on Leo. And I was like, Yay, 1000 followers. And then when I announced to one I had like, 50 people followed me. And I was like, Oh, by the timeline announced it literally like probably not even five minutes later is already back under 1000. And I was like, whatever.

Chloe:Honestly, when green girls got to I think 100 whichever it was. I think I just didn't post about that for a bit. Because it went down.

Mikaela: Exactly how embarrassing. We have a personal relationship. It's not embarrassing. Get that for you out of your head. But it's so painful, because it is something that you know is exciting. And then when it's gone. It's like oh I am disappointed.

Chloe:Yeah. [00:19:00] If you think that 10 of those people were actually robots. I thought we were doing something right anymore. No, it's gone. Yeah. Oh, yeah. But yeah, I've got a friend actually who said recently that she actually uninstalls Instagram until like the Sunday of every week she'll reinstall it because really all she wants to do is check in with her friends. And she has said to people like this Instagram is not how to reach me but most of the week like Facebook chat or WhatsApp texting, call me like all these other things exist, because she did just follow so many like fitness accounts and things like that and that this girl is gorgeous. So fit so healthy, and it made her feel crappy. And she's super smart as well. She is smart enough to know that these things are fake. And it still gets to her.

Mikaela: And that's fine, too. It might even be nice to like. I personally can't [00:20:00] commit to that because I have farmer, I feel like I'm missing out even though I'm not missing out of anything at all. But you could also make a new account. And just you can keep your old one that just don't log into it or log into it every so often. But start a new account with new people that you follow. And you can curate it exactly how you want. Like, I've got so many late Instagram accounts, it's ridiculous, but I'll go on different ones for different needs. And like something crafty today. I'm gonna go on this one, or I want to see what my friends are doing today. I'm gonna go in this one.

Chloe:

The one thing that carries across all the accounts I have. I like cartoons. I like comic strips. Yeah, I can't not like them on every single account.

Mikaela: Well, that's the other thing, you might end up turning your other account into something else because you accidentally like something. And then Instagram is like, ooh, more of this.

Chloe:It can certainly happen. Actually, the only thing that ever happens is like my on Be Kind Coco, or like my regular Chloe account. They somehow know that I like Zelda a lot. And if [00:21:00] I go on the discover page, it's all just like Zelda. And I'm not mad. I'm just not sure how they know. I don't know. There's just no, though. I guess I just go on one. Oh pretty and they're like, cool. She likes Zelda, let's focus on that.

Mikaela: Let's send it to all of her accounts called Chloe or Coco Zelda. Yeah. Other ways we can make this work for you. There's so many, like we touched on before, would you call it the modes, but I wrote set yourself an online timer, which is the same sort of thing as modes, like you can put your phone on Do Not Disturb or you can like, I'm just gonna get my phone up now. So I can tell you, it must have come in a new update. Because if I scroll across the top, there's a little option there that says modes. And then if I click on that it's got sleep, which is the only one that I've said, is driving mode, exercise, relax and work. So that's something I kind of want to look into more because if you're, say, having a productive day on a [00:22:00] Saturday or whatever night and you don't want to be interrupted and get distracted by all the little dings on your phone, you could send it to a mode. So that's really cool. I'm not sure if it's on every feature that's an Android, I think iPhone has something very similar.

Chloe:I've heard that iPhone has something automatically that I had to download. I downloaded an app called times app. So like time's up, but a timer app.

Mikaela: Oh, that's cute.

Chloe:Yeah. So you go into that. And then it basically has a copy of every single one of your apps. So if you are too obsessed with Instagram, it will then make a new shortcut to Instagram that has little arrow bars on it. So when you click on that one, it takes you straight to the original app, but it asks you for a time limit. So you can set it for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour. And then when it gets there, it gives you a warning like a two minute warning. And then timed up.

Mikaela: That's great. [00:23:00] That's so good.

Chloe:It's gone. And then you have to then make your way back.

Mikaela: And yeah, you can. It's easy to do but it's a conscious decision.

Chloe:And it will at least make you feel a bit guilty. If that's what you need to stop yourself from overusing.

Mikaela: Oh, it's like, you know, you have a box of chocolates are brand new pack of cookies. And yeah, girl, I'm just gonna take two with me and leave the bag over there. Then I have to make the conscious decision that if I want more, to get up and walk over there.

Chloe:And sometimes that's all you need.

Mikaela: That's right. Sometimes I'll get up after my two biscuits and come up with a whole bag.

Chloe:Sometimes that'd be how it is. But that's okay. Yeah, that's okay, too. This isn't a full on. You're not going on social media forever. It's just making you aware of the decisions.

Mikaela: Correct.

Chloe:Yeah, like that. I think that iPhones now just have that built in that you can choose amongst down on app for. But I like that for myself.

Mikaela: Yeah, I think that's really good. Because I'm not sure if [00:24:00] people have heard the term dome scrolling.

Chloe:Yes, I think I have where you're just infinitely

Mikaela: Constantly and because social media and the instant access that we've got has sort of trained our brains to only engage for short things like, you know, short form content reels, TikTox they're all really little. I used to watch YouTube videos all the time. I searched for 30 minute hour long stuff, but now don't get me wrong. I do love TikTok. But there are some days where I will just waste two hours before I've even known it. Because it's in

Chloe:Looking for something good.

Mikaela: 20 second clips and I get here, but it's also different emotions. Like it's not just happy.

Chloe:You get it's like chunks of everything.

Mikaela: Correct. So you could have a really joyful video and then you could have something that you really weren't anticipating that was a bit intense or then you can have something that makes you really sad and emotional. And then you've got the joy again, like we weren't built to cycle through them immersions [00:25:00] like that. So it really messes you up. Yeah, I know. I've done a big deep dive. Yeah. It's like it's a lot.

Chloe:You're out the other side, a changed woman.

Mikaela: I just need to actually action things. And there's some things that I have done in this something that I'll try might not all work, but that's okay.

Chloe:What so and I remembered I should say our names because we sound similar.

Mikaela: Yes.

Chloe:So Mikaela, I don't have TikTok you do? Do you have any tips therefore for like cleaning that?

Mikaela: I think that app that you just said would be perfect?

Chloe:Yeah, just to control the time you spend on it.

Mikaela: Definitely. And I find where you look at it as well makes a difference. If you sit down on the couch. Yeah. Or if you're in bed, I think you'll find that you end up scrolling a lot longer. Yeah. Whereas sometimes I'll get up in the morning, and I'll go make my breakfast. And I'll sit there. And I know that I've got 10 minutes to eat my breakfast. And that will be my fun, TikTok time. [00:26:00] Once that's done, I've gotta get off and get ready and go for work. So I've kind of set myself a limit in that sense.

Chloe:You have a thing to do afterwards.

Mikaela: Yes.

Chloe:That you can't put off.

Mikaela: Exactly. Because otherwise, I'd just be like beep, beep, going through all the weird emotions. And then yeah, feeling all kinds of ways.

Chloe:Does TikTok ever make you want to buy things?

Mikaela: I haven't really seen anything viral. I have seen a lot of small businesses that I follow that I'm like, Oh, that's cute. But I don't think I've actually bought anything from TikTok that has been recommended.

Chloe:Yeah, I think I'm the same with Instagram. Even though they've got the Instagram shop function. Something in me is like too old school to accept it. Yeah. I don't know what it is. It's great for small businesses.

Mikaela: I think if you've got Etsy, you can't use it. Oh, of course, if it's like Shopify or something else, then you can link it and it's pretty cool. Oh, that'd be really interesting, because I'm planning on using Shopify.

Chloe:You can link products, straight to pictures. [00:27:00] And I think influencers can do it too. So like, if it's a brand that does that, yeah, you could tag it, right. Like it's cool, but I don't think I've ever bought something through that mode.

Mikaela: No, I don't think I've ever bought anything from an Instagram shop, either.

Chloe:However, actually Pinterest as well, I forgot about Pinterest. I love Pinterest.

Mikaela: Me too.

Chloe:But you can buy things through Pinterest as well. And there's all these analytics from Instagram from Pinterest, Pinterest that say X percent, like a big percentage of people who use us do shop through us and shops make X percent more money because of using us. And even what's the afterpay? Yeah, um, yeah, I guess once of that nature, they will also say, and this is not social media now.

So yeah, but they'll also say people that shop using afterpay spend X percent. Yeah, more than if they don't like it according to the research that we've got. And as good as that is for businesses, to me as a consumer and thinking about the world and like, great, [00:28:00] these people are buying more than they need so they might be wasting their money. So many people buy things that they should return that then get wasted. And I was sitting there like, that's not great, actually.

Mikaela: No, but it's all about money. It's all about the business side of things. I can tell you today when I went and had a look at some of the op shops, there was so many things brand new with tags, a $60 pair of pants with the tag on it selling in the op shop for like $8. And I was like, does that mean that person's just given up $60? Yeah, on something that they could have returned on? It's fine. That's true. A culture is scary.

Chloe:Yeah. And even now, even now oh my gosh, with kale at the price it is.

Mikaela: Oh, no, I must say I don't like Kale.

Chloe:I know I'm a rarity. That actually really loves Kale and like avocados a total of $2.50.

Mikaela: Mangoes are pretty cheap right now.

Chloe:Oh, okay. I'll put all my money in mangoes

Mikaela: I have two mangoes in the fridge. So that [00:29:00] probably should eat them tonight because.

Chloe:Not cool, move them to the freezer.

Mikaela: Yeah, exactly. They'll get eaten regardless. This one might not be forever on. And I thought that too. It's sort of a hard habit to keep up. But honestly, when I started doing it, I felt really good. And it's journaling. It can be anywhere you want. It's just getting your thoughts out. And I was doing it before bed, which was I think is why it was sometimes a bit difficult because I'd be like, Oh crap, I forgot the time. It's way past my bedtime. Can I write something now? You know, Jake's asleep or do it tomorrow.

So but when I was doing it consistently, I felt so good because I would write down you know, the things that have happened during the day things that made me happy, like just little things like a couple of weeks ago when I got to work and then to Jake's mom came over to me like, you know, bounding over and just gave me this tiny little flower that she'd picked. And I was just like, that's such [00:30:00]fleeting moment. Yeah, now that I've written it down, I get to enjoy it again.

Chloe:You'll remember it.

Mikaela: Yeah. And instead of looking at my phone at bedtime, I was writing. Even things that you know, something happened during the day that made me frustrated or angry. When I wrote it down. I kind of looked back on it and realized, why did that make me react that way?

Chloe:Oh self reflection.

Mikaela: It was really good to sort of look back and go, Hey, maybe that triggered me because blah, blah, blah. Next time. I know, I can deal with it this way. I know, some people are not about writing or whatever. But I really would recommend just giving it a guard. Yeah, totally different.

Chloe:Yeah, same I have not done in so long. But I know that when I did it consistently, it really helps me with anxiety. Definitely. Like, I mean, because I just work all the time. I would a lot of the time have anxiety about work. And when I wrote it down, I could think through so much clearly and kind of get it out. Like I could be anxious there. Yeah, and leave [00:31:00] my head a bit freer. Even like things I had to do that day. Like, I don't think I was as good with my calendar back when I was doing this. And so if I wrote down the things I have to do, it would prioritize it way easier in my head.

And then even though I'm not looking at this journal during the day, but it would stay with me. Yeah. And I would then focus on getting those things done that I thought were important when I wrote in the journal, so that I could be like writing it that night. Like I did the thing I said I would do. It's just it's just me that I'm being accountable to, but it took writing it down to do it. Yeah, I liked it a lot. I shouldn't journal.

Mikaela: Yeah, I did it probably two years ago, really consistently. And then I started again, December, and I haven't done it for a few days. But that was because of our Christmas. Everything was pretty crazy. Yes. But I'm definitely going to do it again. And I've even tried, you know, like, I've no, I talked about crystals earlier. Now I'm gonna talk about manifesting. Oh, I'm not that but you know, sometimes it works. And I it's a [00:32:00] way to change your mindset. You know, like I, particularly with trade school, for example. I have never been really great at Maths.

But I started writing down in my journal. Like, I may not be good at maths now. But it's easy to learn. Oh, you know, my joy for the day was I actually understood the question and it made so much sense. Maths is easy. And I just was writing this stuff down and it really worked just good. If you tell yourself something is hard. You're gonna think it's hard to tell yourself. I can do this. This is easy. It's gonna be so much easier.

Chloe:Yeah. Just changes your thoughts makes things easier to approach. I am so happy that work for you.

Mikaela: It was great. And I'm gonna need to do it again. I'm gonna write in my journal tonight.

Chloe:it's manifesting has a whole side to it. But it's sort of I'd love to do an episode like it sounds. Whoo. And it totally can be But it could be placebo. And it just helps [00:33:00] you focus. There was an episode of Darren Brown. Have you heard of him? Basically, he's known as a magician. But more than that, he's an illusionist. I adore him. He's like an English illusionist, everything he does is real. It's just you've been led down a different route. So like, you're distracted by something, for example. But in one TV episode he did. He got this guy who basically believes that he was the most unlucky guy in the world. And throughout the day, he'd done all of these, I guess, experiments with people in real life. So he left like a $50 to 150 pound like note on the ground.

And he put someone on the street who was asking questions, and like, if you answered all the questions in the survey, you got $20 or something like that. And he put all these opportunities for good out. And this guy just ignored them. Like he didn't see the money on the ground. He said, like, No, I'm up to the person with the survey. And it was all of these things that made him think he was unlucky. But he actually just because he had that belief [34:00:00] about himself, you wouldn't even let it in. And I think throughout that episode, because there's guys in the audience, and they're like, oh, my gosh, yeah, he then opened up a little bit more and believed he could have luck, or at least just be able to look for good things. Not think that nothing could ever happen. And nothing changed. You didn't manifest anything. But if you focused on just the good things, then more good things seemed to happen.

Mikaela: I'm so glad you said that too. Because I saw a tick tock, yes, a tick tock, probably four days ago, and it was this video of this chick in her car just being like, Oh, I saw this video of these two girls. They were just eating and they were just saying, I'm so lucky. Everything works out for me. And I was like, this is the girl she's like, I just I wanted to try it. And oh my god, it worked. So for the past four days, I've been saying out loud. I'm so lucky. Everything works out for me. Yeah. And then after something happens that I'm like, I've said it again. Like I had to get a blood test the other day. And I was like [00:35:00] I'll just go now, I walk in, I didn't even look at the time, they just come back from the lunch break. There was no one else in the waiting room, I went straight in, straight out. I'd have the results in the afternoon. And I walked out and said, I'm sort of lucky. Everything works out well. So it's just opening your mind to other opportunities and letting the good in.

Chloe:Yeah. And I guess when something negative does happen, not focusing on there, because those things will still happen. But you just need to make that your day.

Mikaela: Yeah, that's exactly right. And I think that's why journaling is really good. Because you can kind of push away the negative stuff and focus on all the little joys. Yeah, that's actually my main court. My vision board this year. Yeah, this is focused on the little joys. So like the little flower that Jack's mom picked for me. No waiting line, the half price, secondhand clothing, all the little joys. It sounds silly, but it really works. And it's just by changing your mindset. I think we've touched on the [00:36:00] adjust notification settings, turn off the crap. Train yourself not to pick up your phone every time dings. Take an app break. So uninstall or mute it.

And the other thing, too, is like limit TV time. Technically, yes, that is a digital thing. And I found myself a lot of the time would come home from work, and then you know, we'd make dinner and then we'd watch TV show. And it wasn't really fulfilling. Like, it was good in the moment. But then I felt like, Oh, I didn't have time to do all this other stuff I wanted to do. So now I've been weighing a lot more. So I've just been sort of changing it like, you know, going for a walk instead of going to read or doing something craftsy just like just limiting it a little bit more to allow myself sometimes the things that I really do enjoy. So that's made a huge difference as well.

Chloe:That's also good on you. Yeah, we started going for walks usually it's like, once I'm home from work, yeah, do it then. But it's good. Because usually that's a sort of weird time where one of us is cooking. And until dinner isn't ready, like we're just [0037:00] kind of in limbo around to do that walk. Maybe talk through what I have whatever happened at work? Or whatever happened in the day, and it's nice. Nice to have that time together. There's a lovely park here, but I have not.

Mikaela: Yeah, exactly. And that ties me in perfectly into my last thing, which sounds stupid, but it's have an in person conversation. Because instead of sending each other means all the time, which you stood for should still send means, I'm not saying don't love them. Thank you. Organise an in person meetup. Yeah, go for a coffee day or a fun walk somewhere or do something new, even if it's just trying out a new restaurant with your friend or just popping over. Obviously, with wanting prior direct traffic, just my house might not be organizing an in person thing because you connect so differently in person. Yeah, have more meaningful conversations. Most of the time you end up leaving feeling really fulfilled. Whereas it's just another thing on your phone. Sometimes I don't [0038:00] open messages or notifications, because it almost feels like a chore. Like I'm clearing them. It's not me engaging with my friends. I love talking to my friends. But sometimes I'm like, Oh, another notification?

Chloe:When a conversation turns into a notification. It's not correct. You don't want it anymore. You don't want to engage with it. Yeah, you're right. You're just getting it done.

Mikaela: Yeah. So I think having an in person meetup can make a really big difference.

Chloe:I like that. You know, that's probably why the deleting Instagram thing works, my friend. Because they are really good at scheduling to do stuff. That's good. And so it's not like there is that FOMO of, I guess just space in the day after she's finished work or something because she's actually already planned something.

Mikaela: That's right. Yeah. Probably something a lot more fulfilling as well.

Chloe:Yeah, definitely can be.

Mikaela: But it is lots of dinners.

Chloe:Who knows?

Mikaela: Yes. Lots of dinners.

Chloe:Living her best life.

Mikaela: Alrighty. I think that's a very thing like it. I don't know [00:39:00] if we want to touch on why social media has been so big. Like, it's just, you know, convenience, desire for connection, rise of mobile devices. All that does. I think everyone knows.

Chloe:Well lockdown made everything worse. I'll quickly say like, back when I was seeing a counsellor, they quite regularly worked with kids like young teens and things as well. And they found that a lot of people who used Instagram a lot, found it really hard to go back to school. If they were people that engaged with online gaming, that was more you can have a headset chat with your friends. They dealt with things way better. They were still kind of social. It was still connecting but Instagram and probably TikTok as well. Is very much look at me.

Yeah, but what I've got and if nothing's going on, then you're just seeing these other people with everything. And it just doesn't always make you feel great. And so many people have just chatted and hung out on Instagram. Found it really weird going back to all these social [00:40:00] situations that they just hadn't had already felt bad about themselves, because they're comparing ourselves to basically like the old school magazines. I mean, they're still most magazines are still awful in the way of liquid. All of these models are beautiful, everyone is and these are the things to do in your skincare routine. And Instagram is just a carbon copy of that.

Mikaela: More probably more like, targeted.

Chloe:Yeah, I was gonna say what's the opposite of diluted?

Mikaela: Oh, concentrated.

Chloe:Yes, it is more concentrated. And it's like, well, you've chosen to follow us like, Yeah, but when?

Mikaela: Yeah, exactly.